Why was I crying, you ask?\u00a0 <\/span>I was crying because I was in Islamabad, and whenever I would enter any coffee or bakery establishment and ask for an everything bagel, they would look at me blankly and respond the same way,<\/p>\n \u201cUhh\u2026.what\u2019s a bagel?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It turns out that nobody in Islamabad knew what bagels were, because bagels simply did not exist in this city.\u00a0 <\/span>Even the Dunkin\u2019 Donuts in Islamabad didn\u2019t offer bagels.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s Dunkin Friggin\u2019 Donuts for cryin\u2019 out loud!\u00a0 <\/span>The bagel is practically the salty sister of the donut.\u00a0 <\/span>HOW COULD THEY NOT HAVE BAGELS?!\u00a0 <\/span>Oh, sure, they had everything bagels at their Karachi location, because apparently, people in Karachi are good enough to deserve everything bagels, but we Islamabadians were simply not worthy.<\/p>\n Can you IMAGINE?\u00a0 <\/span>I mean, SERIOUSLY.\u00a0 <\/span>A world without everything bagels, ladies and gentlemen, is a very sad place indeed.\u00a0 <\/span>Especially for a pregnant woman.\u00a0 <\/span>This is why I was crying.<\/p>\n So my sweet husband did some Googling, and the ONE place that showed up in an internet search for “bagels in Islamabad” was a restaurant called The Hot Spot Cafe<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>So of course we went there, THAT NIGHT.\u00a0 <\/span>It was practically a medical emergency.\u00a0 <\/span>I was suffering from some serious everything bagel deprivation.\u00a0 <\/span>I needed a cream cheese drip STAT.<\/p>\n The Hot Spot is set up in a renovated railway carriage in the very posh F7 sector of Islamabad.\u00a0 <\/span>So, we walked in, and sitting at a table right across from the door was a white, blond, German (no, I have no way of confirming that he was, in fact, German, but my imagination has set this as his nationality) man who saw us in the doorway and LITERALLY jumped in his seat.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps he was not expecting a bearded man and woman in full black burka<\/i> and niqaab<\/i> to show up at such an establishment.\u00a0 <\/span>However, I am sure he was set at ease when the supposedly-terrifying looking man went up to the counter and asked the guy behind it:<\/p>\n \u201cHey, you got any bagels here?\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, they didn\u2019t have any bagels, even though this was the SOLE reason for us coming to this place and scaring poor foreigners.\u00a0 <\/span> Anywho, around the time I was pregnant with baby number two a few years later, I was, luckily, much more adept at baking, and working with yeast as I was during the great Pizza Debacle. (Yes, the one in which I mangled two pizzas.\u00a0 <\/span>If you don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about, check out my post: Spicy Pizza with Chicken Fajita Topping<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>You\u2019ll learn more about the crazy things I do when I\u2019m pregnant, AND\u00a0get a really awesome spicy pizza recipe.)\u00a0 <\/span>So this time, when the craving for everything bagels with cream cheese struck again, (YES, AGAIN.\u00a0 <\/span>You can take the girl out of NY but you can\u2019t take the NY out of the girl!)\u00a0 <\/span>I opted to bake my own bagels.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n My first batch was a success, and it was a pleasure to introduce my bagel-deprived family to this beautiful bread.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, NOW I see what all the fuss was about.\u00a0 <\/span>This is GOOD!\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>were my sister-in-law’s exact words.\u00a0 O<\/span>kay, not exact, because she said it in Urdu, but, you know what I mean.<\/p>\n Today, I\u2019ve created my own version of that\u00a0original recipe.\u00a0 <\/span>I used all purpose flour in this recipe because I wanted to use ingredients that were readily available and DIDN\u2019T require a special trip to Kohsar Market.\u00a0 <\/span>But if you can easily get bread flour, then DO go for that.\u00a0 <\/span>Diastatic malt is also hard to come by here, so I\u2019ve substituted with brown sugar in the dough and honey in the bagel boiling water.\u00a0 <\/span>I also wanted to cut down on the prep time because I\u2019m an impatient person.\u00a0 <\/span>So while I still prep the sponge the night before, I don\u2019t wait as long after the dough is prepared, just a couple hours or so.\u00a0 <\/span>If you follow my recipe right, you can prep your bagels the night before and work on them after Fajr the next morning to get yummy bagels for breakfast.\u00a0 <\/span>That just fills my little Brooklyn heart with so much joy.<\/p>\n And if, by any chance, you\u2019re reading this, oh blond, (possibly German) man from Hot Spot\u2014 I\u2019m very sorry for scaring you that night.\u00a0 <\/span>I was just a pregnant woman with a SERIOUS craving for bagels.<\/p>\n \n You SHOULD be using bread flour.\u00a0 <\/span>However, in Pakistan, this is not easy to find, so I\u2019m working with All Purpose.\u00a0 <\/span>Islamabadians, you can get bread flour from Esajee’s<\/a> at Kohsar Market if you really want to do this right.<\/span><\/p>\n I found Coarse Sea Salt at Al Fatah Supermarket<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m sure it is also available at Kohsar market.\u00a0 <\/span>If you\u2019re still having trouble, use any kind of readily available coarse salt.\u00a0 <\/span>If all else fails, plain old table salt will work just fine.<\/span><\/p>\n Traditionally, everything bagels use the \u201cBlue\u201d poppy seed which is the black colored poppy seed.\u00a0 <\/span>However, <\/span>white poppy, khash khaash<\/em>, is more readily available here, so that is what I used.\u00a0 <\/span>There is only a very slight difference in taste.<\/p>\n Dehydrated onion and garlic make for a crunchier bagel topping.\u00a0 <\/span>I have not been able to find these\u00a0<\/span>here, so I work with fresh onion and garlic.\u00a0 <\/span>It is a pain in the butt to get the fresh ingredients to stick on the bagel, and it is not as attractive in the finished product, but the taste makes it worth the effort.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n You can attempt to toast or dehydrate the minced fresh onion and garlic before sprinkling on your bagel, but be careful while grilling the bagels, as the toppings\u00a0will burn quickly in that situation.\u00a0 <\/span>Any Pakistanis out there, if you can find dehydrated onion or garlic somewhere, or have found a hack that makes working with fresh onion and garlic easier to work with, do let me know!<\/p>\n Everything bagels are best paired with coffee or my loose leaf chai tea<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Everything](\"https:\/\/beckykeepshouse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Everything-Bagels-2165.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI don\u2019t remember what I decided to have instead, but I recall it as being some fruity confection.<\/del> \u00a0My husband tells me that I ordered a lemon tart that night.\u00a0 <\/span>I do not doubt his memory, because Mashallah, he is amazing like that, but I am seriously questioning my pregancy-sanity.\u00a0 <\/span>A LEMON tart was the sufficient substitute for an everything bagel?!\u00a0 <\/span>I MUST have been pregnant.<\/p>\nEverything Bagels: Special Tips for Pakistani Bakers<\/h2>\n
![\"Everything](\"https:\/\/beckykeepshouse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Everything-Bagels-2158-1.jpg\")
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